Jean Dubuffet 1943 - 1963 Paintings, Sculptures Assemblages - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560982993 ISBN 13: 9781560982999

Publisher: Smithsonian, 1993

Synopsis

A collection of Dubuffet's mature works (daily life and popular culture in Paris); whimsical paintings; imaginary landscapes; and caricatures of well-known French writers, literary critics, and artists. Companion to an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. 103 illustrations, 93 in color.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Jean Dubuffet (1901-85) stood the French art world on its ear with the provocative--even insolent--works that he began to exhibit in the last years of WW II. This volume, which accompanies a show at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, presents examples of Dubuffet's painting and sculpture from that time through the early 1960s. His violent, nakedly two-dimensional art can be difficult to capture in photographs, depending as it does in great measure on knotty textures and eccentric color schemes for effect. On the whole, however, the reproductions here do it justice, as do the intriguing essays and notes. Schjeldahl, an art critic, enthusiastically explicates Dubuffet's role in what he sees as the collapse of Western art tradition; Cooke, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, discusses Dubuffet's shocking portraits of France's literary elite, relating the scandal that their exhibition added to the then-current debate over the postwar role of collaborationist writers; art dealer Jean Planque offers personal reminiscences. This project will prove revelatory for those familiar only with Dubuffet's late works, the red, white and blue jigsaw puzzle confections for which he is best known. Demetrion is director of the Hirshhorn.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This exhibition catalog accompanies a Dubuffet retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. The period covered starts with the artist's first mature paintings and ends as he was beginning his L'Hourloupe series: the jigsawlike red, blue, and white pieces that occupied the rest of his career. The critical consensus has held that the 1943-63 span encompasses Dubuffet's most successful work. This catalog includes 90 well-chosen color plates, a selection of intriguing quotations from Dubuffet's writings and statements, and brief essays by Susan Cooke, Jean Planque, and Peter Schjeldahl. Although neither a comprehensive nor a groundbreaking addition to the literature on Dubuffet, this is an up-to-date and very enjoyable volume that will appeal to students and interested lay readers as well as specialists.
- Kathryn W. Finkelstein, M.Ln., Cincinnati
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Smithsonian
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1560982993
• ISBN 13: 9781560982999
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Editor: Dubuffet Jean, Demetrion James, Cooke Susan J., Planque Jean, Schjeldahl Peter